Originally Posted By: sslechta

Yeah, I like to study ants too. (Ducks and runs for cover)

Children aged eight to twelve don't mind it at all in my experience.
Weekly they'd each have to find the etymology, (they were given the links to online etymology dictionaries within their digital version of the work sent to them via their school email address. They could submit the work digitally or on paper. They also had pre school access to computers in the room if they had no gear or access at home), of three words they chose from their personal spelling list, (30 kids, 30 lists: no child required to waste time on words they already knew & no child to skip words they didn't know from previous "levels". Some kids had 30 words almost all of their own choosing - quite often new words from the novel we were currently studying - while another might have five because they struggled with literacy. Each list was private, each child mapped their own progress via pretest & test graphs on paper and in a personal spreadsheet that only the individual and I had access to), and then read the most interesting to the class. We'd talk about each one offered, the dark history, the modern variations, the slang, euphemisms (that was a particularly interesting aspect - in most parts of NSW public school students ask to "go to the toilet" rather than the bathroom - why hide what you mean?), etc.
Etymology was, then, part of public speaking, discussion, exchange of ideas/perspectives, reading, linguistics, spelling, handwriting, typing/word processing, mathematics and technology use.
Any that were disengaged and wanted to run for cover had their lists reviewed as lack of success was, more often than not, the reason for avoidance.


Last edited by rayc; 01/04/23 01:23 PM.
Cheers
rayc
"What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe